United Nations Commission On Human Rights 60th Session - Item 12:  Integration Of Human Rights Of Women And A Gender Perspective
Tim Caughley, The New Zealand Permanent Representative On Behalf Of Canada, Australia And New Zealand, April 2004

Mr Chairman,

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the governments of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
It is more than twenty years since the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women entered into force.  At the end of last year, more than ninety percent of the UN membership had become a party to this treaty.  But this treaty must become universal.  We again call on those states that have not yet done so to ratify the Convention and to join the international consensus on women's rights.  It is also nearly ten years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.  I would like to underscore the continued commitment of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to the implementation of those documents.

Yet, at a time when the international community should be moving forward with programmes designed to fulfil our commitments, there are some states that are beginning to question the common standards we have all agreed to.  It is especially unfortunate that there are delegations that are attempting to resile from the international commitments that they undertook at both Cairo and Beijing, and that they can no longer reaffirm those outcome documents.  

Mr Chairman, we share the Special Rapporteur's concern that, in the present environment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve consensus among Member States on critical issues concerning women's rights.  Our delegations welcomed the Third Committee's adoption last year of resolutions on domestic violence against women and another mandating the preparation of an in depth study on violence against women.  But we were at the same time deeply disappointed by the Committee's inability to reach agreement on the omnibus resolution, which would have set out comprehensively widely-held concerns about this appalling problem.

Mr Chairman, we continue to see increasing rates of trafficking of women and children.  We continue to see alarming increases in HIV/AIDS infections among women and adolescent girls, fuelled by gender inequalities, stigmatisation, violence and discriminatory attitudes.  And we continue to hear reports of widespread sexual violence being used as a weapon of intimidation and war in ongoing conflicts around the globe.  All of this amply demonstrates the continued relevance of international commitments to eliminating violence against women and the urgent need for concerted international action.  

There have been, however, some welcome steps forward recently.  The celebration of the third anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 and the first anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute mark significant achievements.  We were pleased to welcome last year the appointment of the new Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Yakin Erturk, and are looking forward to the continued effectiveness of this important mandate.  Similarly, we were pleased that the Commission on the Status of Women agreed last month to a set of conclusions on the role of men and boys in promoting gender equality.  These conclusions focus on achieving attitudinal and behavioural change in, among other areas, violence against women.

Mr Chairman, as the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women said in her first report, “violence against women is a violation of women's entitlement to their fundamental rights and freedoms”.  Violence against women is universal.  We cannot ignore the devastating impact of gender-based violence for women, their families and their communities.  Nor can we underestimate the importance of its elimination in achieving our broader international development and poverty reduction goals.  The high rates of violence against indigenous women are also still an issue of great concern.  We welcome initiatives that draw attention to violence against women, including the Swiss initiative at this Commission to draw together female foreign ministers to focus on this grave problem.

The contexts in which violence against women occurs are expanding and highlight the underlying gender inequalities that are at its root: in conflict and post-conflict situations, in the home and in the community, and trans-nationally.  The Special Rapporteur notes a widening of the arena in which violence against women occurs and the risk of it becoming normalised in the every day and “every night” lives of women.

The intersection between gender inequality and violence is made abundantly clear in the case of HIV/AIDS and its devastating impact on women, their families and communities. We are encouraged to note that the Special Rapporteur will focus on this issue in the coming months.

As the Secretary General stated on March 8th , “when it comes to violence against women, there are no grounds for tolerance and no tolerable excuses”.

The greatest achievements of the past decade in the struggle against violence have indeed been awareness raising and standard setting.  The second decade must indeed focus on the implementation of effective programmes and strategies to ensure that the prohibition against violence becomes a tangible reality for the world’s women.  No less, Mr Chairman.